Reconstructing Black Death: Why Was Plague Microbe so Deadly?

Page Navigation

Main Profile

At A Glance

Reconstructing Black Death: Why Was Plague Microbe so Deadly?

Learn more: http://to.pbs.org/nwFS51 Researchers announced Wednesday that they've managed to reconstruct the genome of the Black Death, the illness that wiped out around half of Europe's population in just a few years in the mid-1300s. Ray Suarez discusses the developments with geneticist Hendrick Poinar of McMaster University.